The Plame Story - Documented, Part 1b

Part 1 is here.

In case Part 1 didn’t make it clear who the real culprit may be in the Plame/Wilson case, here it is in plain English: THE CIA.

The CIA initiated the investigation. On September 28, 2003, the Washington Post reported: “At CIA Director George J. Tenet's request, the Justice Department is looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist, government sources said yesterday.”

A letter was sent from the CIA to Representative John Conyers (D) of the House Judiciary Committee. “Acting independently and with great secrecy, the CIA contacted the Justice Department with ‘concern’ about articles in the press that included the ‘disclosure’ of ‘the identity of an employee operating under cover.’ The CIA informed the Justice Department that the disclosure was ‘a possible violation of criminal law.’”

Former prosecutor and Independent Counsel Joseph E. diGenova says there has been a ‘war between the White House and the CIA over intelligence” and that the CIA appears to be “using the sort of tactics it uses in covert actions overseas. He makes the case that the CIA “launched a covert operation” against a sitting president when it sent Joe Wilson to Niger.

DiGenova says the claim that Valerie Plame was an undercover agent is a smoke screen. On Imus in the Morning (carried on radio and MSNBC-TV), he said, “It seems to me somewhat strange, in terms of CIA tradecraft, that if you were really attempting to protect the identity of a covert officer, why would you send her husband overseas on a mission, without a confidentiality agreement, and then allow him when he came back to the United States to write an op-ed piece in the New York Times about it.”